Sunday, November 11, 2007

If you assume that each flight was a revenue flight (no positioning or dead head flights and no diverted flights) and each flight had 3 passengers and each passenger paid $4 per mile, you would get the absolute maximum revenue for the month.

If you assume a reasonable percentage of the flights were positioning, training, or dead head flights and each rev flight had one passenger and each passenger paid $2 per mile, then you get the lower bound on revenue for the month.

Then best case would be 3 passengers per flight x $4 per mile x 314 flight hours x 220 miles per flight hour x 100% revenue flights =$830K for the month.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

After detailing Dayjet website traffic stats here, it's only fair to share some numbers for Discussions' own visitors. 275 unique visitors visited the blog 450 times as of October 30th for 860 total pageviews. While 20 countries sent traffic to the blog, the US and Canada contributed the lions share.

Five states contributed 20 or more visits each, with Florida leading with 75. North Palm Beach leads the Time on Site category with an average 17+ minutes for each of three visits. California had 36 visits from 23 different locations.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

with Ed Iacobucci via AeroNews. Eclipse Aviation is an Aero-News sponsor. Ed states almost 300 companies signed up for DayJet service. Very little interest so far in whole aircraft service, which faces much more competition than per seat offerings. Ed also relates that virtually 100% of customers are coming from the auto side of travel.

The discussion lightly touches on diverting around weather, but no questions were raised regarding the lack of flight into known icing, and its possible impact on North FL ops this winter.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Any columnist that starts with a question like "Can a turkey fly?" has my attention. And Steve Syre of the Boston Globe keeps slinging the 'tude on Pogo Jet (potential DayJet near-competitor) and its IPO from there.

Pogo Jets exists in Chicopee but doesn't have any real operations to speak of so far. It is a developing business that should be seeking venture capital investors instead of public stockholders right now.

The comapny, which looks to fly in early 2009 or so using Eclipse 500's in a per aircraft rental with "finely appointed leather interiors" has an updated website at FlyPogo.com

{Scab (ed)} /Analyst Vaughn Cordle of the consulting firm AirlineForecasts has looked over Pogo plans and doesn't like what he saw. "It's a bust of a business idea," he says.

Cordle can tick off a list of problems with the Pogo plan: bad economics, aircraft reliability questions, and lack of an existing service center. He ranks Pogo atop several companies exploring similar strategies, but only because of Crandall's experience and reputation.

But back to Steve.....

The Eclipse 500 jet seats five, and Pogo plans to use two pilots on every flight, leaving room for three passengers. Scott McCartney tested three very light jets for the Wall Street Journal last fall and described the Eclipse 500 like a sports car, very nimble but cramped.

The jet's interior has 20 percent less space than a Honda Odyssey minivan's. If you end up in the third passenger seat, "it will remind you of sitting on a floor cushion at a Japanese restaurant," McCartney wrote. Oh, and this: There's no bathroom on the plane.

Pogo Jet is an idea still too far ahead of its time for commercial success. But it can offer investors the chance to throw their money out a window from an exceptionally great height.